Denny's Adding 5% ObamaCare surcharge on bills

[jedi]

I notice the restaurants putting forth this policy serve only garbage and I would never eat there. Denny's, Applebee's, and Papa John's don't actually produce good food.

So, I guess they will get 5% of nothing from me. Sad to see business owners using this as an excuse to screw over their workers.

As a small business owner we deal with these things all the time. My business relies upon onsite service. So when gas prices go through the roof, so do our costs. I put between 3-5K miles on my car each month and some my employees do as well. I reimburse for miles for them. When gas was $4.50/gallon that really sucked, but we did a business analysis and figured we could tough it out. If it went higher, we would have had to raise rates. I get that.

If they aren't making that much money per location they need to up their game. I haven't been in a Denny's in a decade or more, but all of these restaurants pander to the $$$ conscious customers. They built their businesses on providing low-cost low-quality food to people who didn't want to spend a lot on food. Live by the sword, die by the sword. They can probably raise each food item by $1 and be fine.

Instead of just raising the food by $1, they are on national news crying about "The Man" is screwing them and they are forced to take it out on their employees. Instead of simply making it work, they are screwing the people who work for them.

I'm a bit confused how is denny's screwing with there employees? Denny's is just gling to add the 5% onto the customer's bill and show it's the obamacare tax. How does that affect the employee?

Unless the line of thinking is by doing that they will drive away customers and in turn lose biz which means lay offs.
Or by adding 5% it means that the tip is now going to be 5% less since customers will say well I was going to give $8 tip but just lost $3 to the new tax so only $5 on the table now.

As to the biz 'crying' on TV. Well that is the biz's choice to do. We (individuals) complain and we protest. The biz has the same path, that is how they are protesting. Another way is to raise prices and/or just close.

 

[Mad Macs]

I'm a bit confused how is denny's screwing with there employees? Denny's is just gling to add the 5% onto the customer's bill and show it's the obamacare tax. How does that affect the employee?

Unless the line of thinking is by doing that they will drive away customers and in turn lose biz which means lay offs.
Or by adding 5% it means that the tip is now going to be 5% less since customers will say well I was going to give $8 tip but just lost $3 to the new tax so only $5 on the table now.

As to the biz 'crying' on TV. Well that is the biz's choice to do. We (individuals) complain and we protest. The biz has the same path, that is how they are protesting. Another way is to raise prices and/or just close.

Denny's isn't doing it, but other business owners have fired employees or cut hours to pay for something that hasn't even happened yet. I respect Denny's for simply raising prices and NOT messing with employees, but when a business owner has a 40,000 sq ft house with a golf course while his employees make minimum wage or Walmart employees needing food stamps to survive I question the business owners.

 

[printcraft]

Denny's isn't doing it, but other business owners have fired employees or cut hours to pay for something that hasn't even happened yet. I respect Denny's for simply raising prices and NOT messing with employees, but when a business owner has a 40,000 sq ft house with a golf course while his employees make minimum wage or Walmart employees needing food stamps to survive I question the business owners.

SCREW THAT BUSINESS OWNER......... HOW DARE HE START A BUSINESS AND MAKE IT SUCCESSFUL....... HE DIDN'T BUILD THAT!!!!!!!!
IT SHOULD ALL BE CONFISCATED AND GIVEN TO THE WORKERS..... WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE.... FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEEDS!!!!!

 

[Mad Macs]

“I used to work at McDonald's making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? "Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it's against the law.”

--Chris Rock

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Denny's isn't doing it, but other business owners have fired employees or cut hours to pay for something that hasn't even happened yet. I respect Denny's for simply raising prices and NOT messing with employees, but when a business owner has a 40,000 sq ft house with a golf course while his employees make minimum wage or Walmart employees needing food stamps to survive I question the business owners.

It's "his" business (I'm assuming you are correct that Denny's is a privately owned affair). The employees are not indentured. Both are of mutual agreement to the situation they find themselves. Employer and employee should be free to find other circumstances as they see fit. Just because you are alive, does not entitle you to a particular level of compensation. What you settle for is up to you, to a larger extent we're often willing to admit. If you own the business, you could apportion you profits equally among each employee...there's nothing to stop you from doing that either.

 

[drillsgt]

Denny's isn't doing it, but other business owners have fired employees or cut hours to pay for something that hasn't even happened yet. I respect Denny's for simply raising prices and NOT messing with employees, but when a business owner has a 40,000 sq ft house with a golf course while his employees make minimum wage or Walmart employees needing food stamps to survive I question the business owners.

These are minimum wage jobs, sorry if that's all you can do but waitresses and store stockers are never going to get 40.00 an hour. These are traditionally stepping stone jobs done by kids until they move on unless you just don't have the skills/educational ability to do more. Until the democrats totally ruin any incentive for business owners the employees always have the option of starting their own business to get their 40000 sq ft house.

 

[jedi]

Denny's isn't doing it, but other business owners have fired employees or cut hours to pay for something that hasn't even happened yet. I respect Denny's for simply raising prices and NOT messing with employees, but when a business owner has a 40,000 sq ft house with a golf course while his employees make minimum wage or Walmart employees needing food stamps to survive I question the business owners.

SCREW THAT BUSINESS OWNER......... HOW DARE HE START A BUSINESS AND MAKE IT SUCCESSFUL....... HE DIDN'T BUILD THAT!!!!!!!!
IT SHOULD ALL BE CONFISCATED AND GIVEN TO THE WORKERS..... WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE.... FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEEDS!!!!!

Printcraft no need to yell. Your point is very valid.
Mad Macs I'm trully confused by your statement as you said it yourself that you are a biz owner. The walmart family (solid example above) started their biz from the ground up. They sacrafice along the way to get their one store to become 2 to become 3 to become more. In doing that they did it the best way they taught would work for them and make them rich in the process. (Ie. Making deals with the manfater, paying a worker $5/hr which that worker agreed to, having cut throat prices, etc).if they failed it would have been there loss and no one elses many a biz in history have and will fail.

Its not the biz owner's responsiblity to take care of his workers. He is after all doing his job he is making money for himself. Or in the case of walmart for the shareholders who invested (gave him money) so that they could get more money.

The cashier is free to go somewhere else to work. Or better yet the cashier should do the same that the walmart family did and become.his/her own boss. Start their own biz, built it and see it grown. It does not have to be retail, could be whatever they want, whatever they think will work. That is the american way.

You are allowed the build it anyway you like and if you succeed its via your labor/decisions. If you fail well you only have you to blame.


Here is about the easiest way I can put it that even kids understand.
Take the trunk or treat example of halloween. Trunck or treat is where instead of going door to door kids go to say the church parking lot where all the church familes go park their cars and pass out candy to the kids. There are prizes for best dressed, best car decorations, food inside the church and games. Its done this way to have a safe environment for the family.

In any case at my chruch its typically 200 cars in the parking lot and it can take you and hour+ to do all those cars. You don't have to do all the cars. You could stop whenever you like and go inside where it is warm and there is food.

So say you and I go collect candy. After 30mins I'm freezing and say heck with this I got 50 pieces of candy I'm done its too cold and go inside to warm up and enkoy the hot coco. You stay and get all the candy from all the cars 200 total (one per car) and come in 1.15 hours later.

I run over to see you and see that you have 200 and Ionly have 50. THAT IS NOT FAIR!!! You have to share since you have more than me. Where is father john? Where. Ah Ifound him and bring him over and complain to him.

Father john says that sharing is caring and takes 50 pieces from you and gives them to me. So now ihave 100 and you 150. Its still uneven so he takes 50 more for himself. Now we are even 100 a piece. He could have split that 50, 25 to each but he feels that 100 is more then enough for one person.

So is that fair? Btw you are still frozen and btw the time father john is done fixing our candy all the hot coco is gone and so is the food. Should have come in earlier.

 

[Indy317]

Denny's isn't doing it, but other business owners have fired employees or cut hours to pay for something that hasn't even happened yet. I respect Denny's for simply raising prices and NOT messing with employees, but when a business owner has a 40,000 sq ft house with a golf course while his employees make minimum wage or Walmart employees needing food stamps to survive I question the business owners.

All these cost problems that are issues to low paid employees aren't the problem of the business owner. A small or large business owner didn't cause a decent home in the Indy metro area to cost $120-$150K. Instead of blaming a business owner, blame realtors, home builders, home repair folks, supply folks, etc. for making it so that people think of shelters as "investments." The shelter is the biggest cost to consumers. Why is it OK to go into debt for 15-30 years, for something that is needed for human survival? Too many turn a blind eye to this part of the economy, then blame oil companies for high gas prices, and business owners for not "paying enough" to employees.

I can't believe anyone in this country still wants to risk starting a business. As a quasi-government worker who does OK income wise, I could deal with the stuff dumped on business owners.

Not only that, but it doesn't take much logic to scan bar codes over a laser, let a machine do the math, and be able to do basic counting. Walmart is at least hiring some of the lower income, working poor people. What happens if they jack the wage to $15/hour at such jobs? For starters, I quit my job and go work for Walmart. Who do you think they would rather have: Someone like me with a great work ethic, always on top of things, good logic and problem solving skills, or someone who ignores the customer, works slow as a snail, has constant childcare issues because the two "baby daddy" aren't in the picture and don't help with the raising of the kids? How many stay at home moms will be running to Walmart to work just 20 or so hours a week once they almost double the pay? You will see at least 25% of the employees of Walmart, Meijer, etc. jobless within months. In fact, in some areas, it could be as much as 75%.

 

[Mad Macs]

These are minimum wage jobs, sorry if that's all you can do but waitresses and store stockers are never going to get 40.00 an hour. These are traditionally stepping stone jobs done by kids until they move on unless you just don't have the skills/educational ability to do more. Until the democrats totally ruin any incentive for business owners the employees always have the option of starting their own business to get their 40000 sq ft house.

At what point does success become greed? I pay my employees pretty well, I'm very fair about making sure they are taken care of because at the end of the day it's THEM I have to thank, not the other way around. They are making me money, it is in my best interest to take care of them in return.

I agree that cashiers shouldn't make $40/hour however how many Wal-Mart employees need government assistance because they don't make enough to feed their kids?

 

[RockofStrength]

At what point does success become greed? I pay my employees pretty well, I'm very fair about making sure they are taken care of because at the end of the day it's THEM I have to thank, not the other way around. They are making me money, it is in my best interest to take care of them in return.

I agree that cashiers shouldn't make $40/hour however how many Wal-Mart employees need government assistance because they don't make enough to feed their kids?

How many more go hungry when Wal-Mart raises prices on bread and milk because they now pay employees worth far less the the 7.25/7.50 per hour rate they are paid a better 10.00/hour rate? Why should Wal-Mart worry about that problem when they have people perfectly willing to do their jobs for the current minimum wage? How many employees are going to go balls-to-the-wall for their employer and pay him his needed living expenses when his new business goes under?

Business owner to employee relationships are just that: a business relationship. I agree to pay x you do work Y and we're all happy. I don't then raise your wages because...you need it? Go find better work if you need more money! Do something to get promoted, work 2 jobs, anything!

 

[Mad Macs]

How many more go hungry when Wal-Mart raises prices on bread and milk because they now pay employees worth far less the the 7.25/7.50 per hour rate they are paid a better 10.00/hour rate? Why should Wal-Mart worry about that problem when they have people perfectly willing to do their jobs for the current minimum wage? How many employees are going to go balls-to-the-wall for their employer and pay him his needed living expenses when his new business goes under?

Business owner to employee relationships are just that: a business relationship. I agree to pay x you do work Y and we're all happy. I don't then raise your wages because...you need it? Go find better work if you need more money! Do something to get promoted, work 2 jobs, anything!

I agree there's a relationship however you didn't answer my initial question. Also, I've heard that Wal-Mart managers get bonuses based on NOT spending money in the store to improve conditions. Heard that one from an asst-manager herself. So somebody is compensated for NOT spending money, seems like they could spend the money and make the stores better and people happier instead of paying somebody to NOT do those things.

 

[Indy317]

I agree that cashiers shouldn't make $40/hour however how many Wal-Mart employees need government assistance because they don't make enough to feed their kids?

But lets look at the facts, at least from what I normally see. At more urban Walmarts, I normally see many young women cashiers, no wedding bands, talking about their kid or kids. Why should Walmart have to pay these people more because they choose to have unsafe sex with men who can't or won't provide for the offspring they help produce? However, when I go into the suburban Walmarts, I usually get a different type of cashier. This is to be expected when talking about areas with larger % of the population is on welfare. Walmart didn't cause the pregnancy, they didn't cause the "father" to be a loser, the didn't force their cashiers to give birth, so why should it be on them to pay more to bailout bad choices? Hell, if they are forced to pay more, as I stated before, they will increase requirements. I can easily see my main Walmart dumping all their employes, with what some would consider "baggage" and hire nothing but local high school juniors and seniors who likely have better logic skills and much less "baggage." Walmart employees need government assistance because of the choices they made in their life, not because Walmart doesn't pay a "living wage."

Also, you are being silly with your $40/hour comment. No one is talking $40/hour except you. Walmart already pays $8 or $9/hour. If they decided to pay $14/hour, some of these employees will still need welfare. You can't raise three kids, with no help from any father(s), on just $14/hour. Not only that, you can bet that as soon as it gets out that Walmart is paying that wage, hundreds of college bound high school kids, and college kids living at home studying at IUPUI, Butler, etc., will be flocking to Walmart to get a job.

Shouldn't Walmart been applauded for giving lower income single mothers jobs? How many single mothers, with two or three kids, do you hire and give living-wage jobs to? How many people do you hire with minimal education, possibly only obtaining a high school diploma, do you hire and provide a job to?

 

[GBuck]

I agree there's a relationship however you didn't answer my initial question. Also, I've heard that Wal-Mart managers get bonuses based on NOT spending money in the store to improve conditions. Heard that one from an asst-manager herself. So somebody is compensated for NOT spending money, seems like they could spend the money and make the stores better and people happier instead of paying somebody to NOT do those things.

Haha, the irony that you're citing a Wal-Mart Asst Manager as a source is amazing in this instance. Yes, bonuses come from "not spending money", if you're not smart enough to understand how business works. "Not spending money," means what? It means, schedule better to avoid overtime. It means order efficiently to not have stock sitting around unused. It means have a safe working environment so employees don't get hurt and you don't pay worker's comp.. It means using discipline appropriately so you don't pay unemployment on a crappy employee.

You say you're a business owner... Do these principles not make sense to you? Is this not how you would reward YOUR managers?

 

[Mad Macs]

Haha, the irony that you're citing a Wal-Mart Asst Manager as a source is amazing in this instance. Yes, bonuses come from "not spending money", if you're not smart enough to understand how business works. "Not spending money," means what? It means, schedule better to avoid overtime. It means order efficiently to not have stock sitting around unused. It means have a safe working environment so employees don't get hurt and you don't pay worker's comp.. It means using discipline appropriately so you don't pay unemployment on a crappy employee.

You say you're a business owner... Do these principles not make sense to you? Is this not how you would reward YOUR managers?

There was a point where the manager wouldn't even replace chairs in the break room so people could sit, there were also cases of not replacing registers that had broken and then blaming employees for not checking people out fast enough.

I know "NOT" spending money is a good thing, but sometimes you need to.

 

[RockofStrength]

I agree there's a relationship however you didn't answer my initial question. Also, I've heard that Wal-Mart managers get bonuses based on NOT spending money in the store to improve conditions. Heard that one from an asst-manager herself. So somebody is compensated for NOT spending money, seems like they could spend the money and make the stores better and people happier instead of paying somebody to NOT do those things.

So, what, Wal-Mart actively encourages its managers to make their stores crapholes nobody wants to visit? Or is it more likely that they are given a bonus based on a lack of need and that money that could have gone toward an improvement (that the manager has said is not needed this month/year) is given to the manager as a reward for keeping the existing infrastructure in good shape? Given that the owners of Wal-Mart are not insane, I would suggest the latter is more reasonable.

As to your initial question, I attempted to answer it obliquely, but now I shall attempt to answer directly. It is none of Wal-Mart's concern if the minimum wage they pay a given worker isn't enough to feed his family. If it truly wasn't enough, he would go find better/more work, or else Wal-Mart would have to raise their wages in order to get the level of competency that they need out of the workforce. No business owner pays wages because he wants to: he does it to get butts in a chair, and he pays more money than a certain number of his competitors in order to get more highly qualified butts in those chairs.

The people are working for Wal-Mart, for goodness sake: the entire success story of that place is based around one thing: Low Prices. Low prices come from good distribution networks, low supplier costs, and low wages/a system that allows their store to function with less-skilled labor that they can pay lower wages to. They are attempting to force Wal-Mart to give away the single most important aspect of their business because they need more money. Wal-Mart has straight up closed entire countries worth of stores because of this crap: they will not put up with it.

 

[coolluke]

You could have a fuel surcharge based on a level of the gas prices based on Midwest's average price. This promises to lower or have no surcharges when the price drops below a certain level, thus saving your customers $$$. Now I agree on this tax as a surcharge. The customer could always deduct this from the tip if they do not like it. After all the employee is the one benefiting from it. Maybe 4 years down the road Obamacare could be eliminated & the surcharge as well. Business owners have to recapture the costs. I think it would be cool if all taxes were itemized, so we could have our reps work on them 1 by 1. 1st to go is the Universal Tax on our cell phone bills to pay for Obama phones. I have included a fuel surcharge link Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update - Energy Information Administration

 

[drillsgt]

But lets look at the facts, at least from what I normally see. At more urban Walmarts, I normally see many young women cashiers, no wedding bands, talking about their kid or kids. Why should Walmart have to pay these people more because they choose to have unsafe sex with men who can't or won't provide for the offspring they help produce? However, when I go into the suburban Walmarts, I usually get a different type of cashier. This is to be expected when talking about areas with larger % of the population is on welfare. Walmart didn't cause the pregnancy, they didn't cause the "father" to be a loser, the didn't force their cashiers to give birth, so why should it be on them to pay more to bailout bad choices? Hell, if they are forced to pay more, as I stated before, they will increase requirements. I can easily see my main Walmart dumping all their employes, with what some would consider "baggage" and hire nothing but local high school juniors and seniors who likely have better logic skills and much less "baggage." Walmart employees need government assistance because of the choices they made in their life, not because Walmart doesn't pay a "living wage."

Also, you are being silly with your $40/hour comment. No one is talking $40/hour except you. Walmart already pays $8 or $9/hour. If they decided to pay $14/hour, some of these employees will still need welfare. You can't raise three kids, with no help from any father(s), on just $14/hour. Not only that, you can bet that as soon as it gets out that Walmart is paying that wage, hundreds of college bound high school kids, and college kids living at home studying at IUPUI, Butler, etc., will be flocking to Walmart to get a job.

Shouldn't Walmart been applauded for giving lower income single mothers jobs? How many single mothers, with two or three kids, do you hire and give living-wage jobs to? How many people do you hire with minimal education, possibly only obtaining a high school diploma, do you hire and provide a job to?

I said something about 40.00 an hour being facetious, sorry